We needed to start doing something in our club instead of slightly messing around. Niels and I had agreed on a plane—the Flite Test Mini Mighty Trainer—to build as groups in the club. But there was a slight issue: we only had raw foam-board and not the actual cut-out kits. I had an MPCNC (mostly printed CNC) at my house and looked into how I could cut out kits from the raw foam-board.

Note: I will make a detailed and replicable tutorial in the future.

What I Did

Cutting Tool of Choice

I figured that the best way was to use a needle-cutter attachment to cut out the foam-board. In short, a needle-cutter is needle, powered by a brushless motor, that oscillates rapidly. At first, I tried using a Dremel mounted on the MPCNC and found that it worked decently well except for that the drill dulled quickly and produced a lot of dust. The needle-cutter solved these issues.

Preparing Files

Now that I had figured out what hardware I was going to be using, I had to prepare the files. Flite Test—an amazing organization—has plans for all of its models including the one I was going to cut out. I found the file on their website and it was in the PDF format. I’m not quite sure what size of foam-board it was meant for, but it was clearly larger than the 20” by 30” sheets of foam-board which I was using. Also, the plans had to be converted from PDF to G-code so that the MPCNC could interpret it.

I had access to Adobe Illustrator, a vector graphic editing tool, which was a substantial help for processing the files. I optimized the files for a total of 3 plane kits, four sheets of foam-board would be sacrificed for this project. Also, I was not going to but out the sport wings for now. The files were exported in a DXF format so that they could be imported into the slicing software.

I used Estlcam as the slicing software as it was free and had a simple user interface. I imported the DXF files and generated the tool paths and exported the result as a G-code file. It was now ready to be used with the MPCNC.

Repetier-Host was used as a controller software to instruct the MPCNC on how to cut out the foamboard using G-code files as instructions.

Cutting out the foam-board

I turned on the MPCNC and in about 3 hours, I had everything cut out and ready for the next club meeting.

Files

Files are located in the plans directory of the GitHub.

Resources

• Flite Test: The organization that designed this plane along with its plans
• MPCNC: An inexpensive CNC platform
  • Needle Cutter: MPCNC needle cutter attachment
• Adobe Illustrator: Vector editing Software
• Inkscape: A free alternative to Adobe Illustrator
• Estlcam: Slicing software
• Repetier-Host: Controller software

Packages and a cart

Ever since the pandemic struck, our supplies have been sitting in the school in room D002. The things purchased with the grant were also there. This needed to be addressed.

Shoutout to Mr. Ruocchio—the best earth science teacher—for letting me borrow this cart. Here it is seen holding the foamboard that Mr. Johnson donated.

Earlier today, I picked up some of these materials bought with the grant along with the foamboard.

The long wait is over, we now have $1750 at our disposal!

Earlier this month, we were confirmed for the Patrick Wang Grant!

With this source of funds, we bought some stuff.

Now what will we do with this stuff? With this stuff, Niels and I will make kits (this time including electronics), enabling the construction of the Flite Test Mini Mighty Trainer.

These kits will then be distributed to the club’s members and they will build them at home during weekly meetings. When everyone has finished building, we will meet at a local park while socially distancing and wearing masks to teach others how to fly.

However, this not our first source of funding

The first funds were donated from the one and only amazing Mr. Johnson, State College Area High School’s principal. He bought us 50 sheets of foam-board out of which we started building airplanes, I mean chuck-gliders, until the pandemic hit.

We also received a small grant for $200 from the PTSO, which we are planning to keep as a rainy-day fund.

What good is a chuck glider?

Pretty useless and boring I dare say! But, it was certainly a step in the right direction.

All of this glider business is about to change as we have some significant funds at our disposal thanks to the Patrick Wang Grant. We have already bought some of the electronics and parts, so that everyone in the club can build their own airplanes and learn how to fly them.

The reason it’s only some of the parts is because the school still needs to approve some of the vendors. Do not fret, we are working on this currently.

Implementation timeline

Dec-Jan: Niels and I make and distribute the kits

Jan-March: Members will build the aircraft

March-April: Meet in a local park and teach members how to fly

April-June: Keep flying, transition from the large wing to the sports-style wing with ailerons, and maybe build some new aircraft